Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast
A podcast for those who do not believe they were put on this earth to work 40 to 50 hours per week for 40 to 50 years, to hopefully retire at the age of 65.
Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast
140. Time Freedom: The Real Estate Investor's Ultimate Goal
🌟 Jonathan Green reveals how real estate investing can free you from the traditional work path. 🌟
Welcome to the Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast! Join host Niyi Adewole as he sits down with the seasoned investor and coach, Jonathan Green. As the managing partner of Streamline Properties, Jonathan brings a wealth of experience in real estate and a deep commitment to building community. In this episode, he shares his journey, insights, and strategies for creating sustainable and ethical wealth.
Episode Highlights:
🔥 Introduction to Jonathan Green:
- Discover Jonathan’s extensive background in education and real estate, and how he runs a successful real estate team while coaching agents and investors.
🔍 Getting Started in Real Estate:
- Jonathan reflects on his early experiences in real estate, influenced by his father, and how those lessons shaped his career.
💡 Passing the Passion to the Next Generation:
- Niyi and Jonathan discuss the importance of instilling a love for real estate in the next generation and share personal anecdotes about family and mentorship.
📈 Balancing Profit and Purpose:
- Jonathan emphasizes the significance of focusing on meaningful investments rather than just accumulating properties. He shares his philosophy on time freedom versus profit.
🛠️ Effective Communication Strategies:
- Learn how Jonathan manages his time and communication effectively, opting for texts over calls to streamline his business operations.
🌍 Building a Legacy:
- Jonathan discusses the legacy he aims to leave behind through his podcast and community efforts, and how he hopes to inspire others in their real estate journeys.
Why This Matters:
In a world filled with distractions and quick fixes, Jonathan’s story serves as a powerful reminder that real success comes from hard work, genuine relationships, and a focus on long-term goals. His insights are invaluable for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of real estate and build a fulfilling life.
📈 Don’t Miss This!
Join us as Jonathan shares his journey, motivational insights, and actionable strategies for achieving financial freedom through real estate. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode is packed with wisdom to help you take control of your financial future.
👉 Watch now to learn how Jonathan Green is making an impact in the world of real estate and inspiring others to do the same!
🔗 Links & Resources:
- Follow Jonathan Green on https://www.instagram.com/zenrealestateinvesting/#
- Sign Up and Get Updates https://zenandtheartofrealestateinvesting.com/about/
- Listen and Watch to his podcast, https://www.youtube.com/c/JonathanGreeneRE/videos
🗓️ Tune in every Wednesday at 7 PM Eastern! Don’t miss out on our journey toward financial freedom through smart investments.
👉 Hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications so you never miss an update! Let’s unlock your potential together!
Our Links
➣ Financial Freedom Mastermind Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/53083...
➣ Peer Space Host Referral Link https://www.peerspace.com/referrals/g...
➣ AirBNB Host Referral Link https://www.airbnb.com/r/niyia41
➣ Ekabo Home Network (IG, Youtube, Email) https://linktr.ee/ekabohome
Niyi Adewole is a licensed realtor in Georgia, brokered by EXP Realty. Feel free to reach out at Niyi.Adewole@exprealty.com if you would like to work with an investor friendly real estate agent.
Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Group Podcast. Here we're all about breaking free from the 40 to 50 year work grind and accelerating our journey towards financial freedom. Join us every Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence. We serve as a hub for connecting with fellow members during our sessions so you can share successes, ask questions and keep the momentum going.
Speaker 2:Good evening everyone. This is Niyi Adewale, host of the Acaba Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast, and I'm excited today to be joined by Jonathan Green, who is not only a seasoned investor but a coach, managing partner of Streamlined Properties, with a background in education, a deep commitment to building community. And Jonathan doesn't just talk the talk, he walks it. He runs a real estate team, invests across multiple states and coaches agents and investors alike to build sustainable, ethical wealth. His approach is thoughtful, value-driven and refreshingly no-nonsense. Jonathan, happy to have you on here, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah me, and nice to be on this side. I've had you, you on my podcast and I'm really excited to be here with your audience.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'm pumped to be able to share you with the Acaba Home audience. It was fun joining your podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I really want to just start from the beginning a bit. And so what was your first step into real estate and what gave you the confidence over time to go all in?
Speaker 3:Oh, I had no choice. It was my dad. Before I can remember, I was walking homes with my dad. My dad was an attorney, which I was as well my first career but we were doing real estate from any single memory I have is about walking houses, buying houses, talking to land tenants as landlords. Every vacation we went on looked at houses. Remember, this is before the Internet. I'm old, so like we were doing it the old school way, buying properties on the courthouse steps.
Speaker 3:So, even though I didn't understand what was going on, I was, like, very immersed in real estate as a child, walked hundreds of homes before I was 18, owned a lot of homes and trust before I was 18. And my dad came from nothing, so he was really trying to build generational wealth. So, again, he didn't force it on me, but I didn't have a choice because it's all he talked about was real estate money. And then he would mix in sports and dirty jokes to keep me interested and that's kind of you know. I didn't have to take the journey and I also, because it was before the internet. I never looked at real estate investing Like. I never thought I was a real estate investor. I just thought that's something smart that I did and I went, you know, became an attorney, but I was always investing in real estate from before I was 18 until now.
Speaker 2:And that's pretty incredible. And I'm actually coming down a pathway where I'm going to become a father here soon. So I'm super excited and this is one of the things I think about is how do I pass on some of this real estate excitement to that next generation? And so, coming to you, how have you found it trying to pass on some of that excitement and kind of get that going?
Speaker 3:It's different. My kids are 23 and 21. They're definitely into it now. I was always into it, but I didn't start getting into it on my own until I was about 20 and 21. I was collecting as a landlord for my dad for several summers but I still just thought like, hey, I'm getting paid for the summer and he would let me get half of old collections. So if they were six months behind and I collect a month, I would get half of that by video games. So it's different now because there's the Internet.
Speaker 3:So I haven't been as aggressively talking to my kids because when I used to write my my parents got divorced when I was two so my dad would pick me up on friday. We'd go from brooklyn to westchester every single weekend. He was never late, always there, but in the car I didn't have a phone to play around with, so we were talking and he was talking about real estate money. So when my kids were little I tried to talk to them. But the devices are there, you know, and then you go on long trips and they're used to watching movies. So it's just a different way of communicating. So I kind of tried too hard at times and now I've really let them see by what I do.
Speaker 3:I've always brought them to flips. We flipped a lot of our own homes. I've showed them and like, right now we're under contract for my daughter's first property. We're buying it together, or I'll buy it, you know, and she's 21 and I'm putting her in the seat. She's going to live there and that's going to be her first, and then later this year I'm going to get something that's a little bit further away. That's going to be half and half with my son and that's going to be kind of a vacation rental in a place that maybe he goes and lives to sometime.
Speaker 3:So again, technology has really changed what you can do and I think it would be hard to really try to force someone to read Rich Dad, poor Dad. But I give it to them and I send them links for other things, like hey, listen to this episode on money, read Psychology of Money by Morgan Household. So I give them all the resources. But I think you have to approach it differently now and just have them touch real estate. They've always done it because I've always done it. And you know, just have them touch real estate. They've always done it because I've always done it.
Speaker 2:Come on now and I love what you just said about giving them some time and space to really come into their own while just doing what you do, introducing them to what you're doing on a day-to-day to kind of get them across the board. And it's coming full circle now because you mentioned, you were about 21 when you started getting serious about it and now they're starting to get serious about it at that age, which is that's pretty awesome man.
Speaker 3:I think they see it for what I saw it as it's like you don't have to be a real estate investor. Like a lot of these new people think they have to quit a job at 24 to become a real. That's silly. Like you want to develop a career so you have a fallback in case things don't go well, like I can always go back to being an attorney. But I stopped being an attorney almost 20 years ago. Like I just do.
Speaker 3:I've been on time freedom for that long running other businesses. You know I went into the art world, ran those businesses, been in education. But I think they look at it like, hey, this is something smart to do. Maybe it will help me, you know, get financial freedom. But we're all chasing time freedom and I've taught them about time freedom from the time that they were little that it's not about how much money you have, it's about how you use your time and whether you use your resources to get you that much time. Because right now they don't have a bunch of overhead. I'll pay for pretty much anything I don't mind.
Speaker 3:Like this is entirely what my dad set up and I followed through on. So I want them to get properties and learn about income. But I'm not pressuring them to go out, you know, and try to get high paying jobs. They can, you know, follow their dreams, which you know. For my son, you know he's an actor and my daughter's, you know, in and out of school and going back to school. But no pressure for me, because I grew up with hippie. My mom was a hippie, you know. She just let me do what I want. I never had rules, I never had a curfew and I really never did anything that bad. So you know I followed the same path that my parents laid out for me.
Speaker 2:Come on now, and one of the things you just mentioned now is that, time freedom being the whole goal, a lot of people, once they get into this world, or even the world of just investing in general, start to lose focus and think about hey, I just want to put as many points on the board as possible when, actually, at a certain point, it doesn't matter if you add more chips, it's not going to change your life, and so how do you balance the profit versus the purpose of why you're doing all this?
Speaker 3:It's a great question, and you're a sports guy and I think of the scoreboard and a lot of people are playing for the scoreboard right now. They want to get as many doors as they can. And I always say, like, well, what do you care how many doors you have? Why would you have 10 doors that make a hundred dollars a month each, when you can just one door that makes a thousand? This doesn't you know. That's 10 problems that you have. They're not thinking correctly. They're trying to, you know, keep up with the Joneses and make it look better on social media. And I always say to people, when they tell me how many doors they have, I say well, how much? What percentage do you own of all of them? And they go oh well, wait a minute. So if you have 10 doors but you're only a 50% owner, you have five doors. So that doesn't take anything away from your interacting with 10 doors, but you don't want to put it off as you have full ownership of them.
Speaker 3:I grew up a cash investor and then I started. After I got divorced, I started using leverage, but I still don't enjoy leverage, so I don't hold a lot of properties. I actually sold a lot of my properties. So when over the years, whenever, even before, doors became popular and people ask me how many doors you have, I will. I don't know because I'm not counting the doors. I only care about the profit and the tenants. And is this a good property? And for me, I call myself an asset hunter I care about the assets. So when I'm looking for real estate, I don't do these crazy spreadsheets that everybody else does. I'm very focused on the asset, because I've walked so many houses and buildings and commercial properties in my life that I'm just trying to sniff out if this is a good asset. I'll work on the price later, but I tend to pay more for properties because I know what I can do with them and that's. But that comes with experience. I don't think you can walk out the door and just do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agreed, it's one of those things where you've got to stay in the game long enough to get those insights and really be able to do it back of the napkin, math and just knowing the blocks, and a lot of people try to get there too quickly. They're like, hey, I just started investing yesterday, why am I not a millionaire now?
Speaker 3:I mean, look, it's just everyone has short-term thinking now and it's partly the fault of social media. Everybody's driving a Ferrari. Those are all leased for the most part, so that's not a great buy. People just aren't thinking of the reality. If you have 10 properties, that's awesome, but if you have 5% or 10% down, you really couldn't. But if you have 20% down and you're buying a bunch of $80,000 houses, those are going to all have problems. So people are like they look at the numbers and then they buy a D class property for the first property and you're like what are you doing? You don't want 2% rule, because 2% rule comes with more CapEx than you're ever going to know about in your life and more tenant problems. If you're experienced, it's great, because everybody needs housing and you can be a good D class landlord. You just have to know what you're in for.
Speaker 3:And I think people like shiny objects and they like to think short term. I mean, why else would the fire movement explode? Who wants to retire early? It sounds terrible. I don't want to retire from anything. It's just like retire as a mindset. I'm never retiring, but I've been on time freedom for 20 years. So some people might say I mean, I haven't retired, I still have careers and I'm never not going to have a career. What am I going to do? You know, if you look at people who've been in the military or police or fire or long, long careers, when they stop the career and they have nothing to do, they have a lot of mental health issues Everybody who's been in that organized culture. It's very hard. So I stay on time freedom.
Speaker 3:Well, because I'm very, very organized, I'm scheduled morning to night and that includes I was just saying like, oh, I just got home from the gym. That started in the morning but I moved the block to the afternoon because I knew, okay, I can fit it in here and my whole life is like that and people think that that makes it more rigid and it's not. I was so rigid as a kid that this type of time blocking that I do actually frees me from everything because I put in my time. Watch TV actually frees me from everything because I put in, you know, my time. I don't like watch tv. It's on, it's on there, like if I want to watch the next playoff game, it's on there.
Speaker 3:I need to make sure these things are there and I think that's what people are chasing time freedom. But they don't want to be a participant in their own time freedom. They just think it's going to be fun to go to Bali once. But like you need money, you don't get two properties and you're good for life. I mean, if you do like, great job. But I don't know how you did that.
Speaker 2:And you're spot on. And it's one of those things where, to your point I mean, we've looked at the studies People that retire and go from hey working 40, 60-hour weeks to zero tend to pass away within like five years Like it's crazy, and they deteriorate so quickly. You need to always continue to be working. The difference that I like to look at is working your ideal day. Like you mentioned. You get to schedule your day how you want. It's not like hey, I have to do something. It's hey, I want to because I feel like I'm making progress and if I want to work out in the morning or the afternoon or the evening, I can pick the time. It's not somebody else dictating that to me. That's the reason for all the other things. That's why you're investing. That's why you're building up the investments.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean that's how you become an efficient business person. No matter what business you're in, you can't just take in all the mess all day. You're never going to get anything done. Everyone thinks it's crazy, but I don't answer my phone. I've never answered my phone in 10 years. And my message says don't try to call me, don't leave a message, just text me. I'm the number one texter in the world because that's how I'm good at communicating. If I do need to take a call, it just goes on the schedule and then I'm there. You know like I'm there at five o'clock. If they're not there at five o'clock, I'm out, it's deleted and it's not happening again because I just need to put something else into the time.
Speaker 3:And I think if you think about real estate, I think about negotiation like that as well. I had the benefit of being a prosecutor for eight years and a criminal defense attorney for two years, so pretty hardcore as a negotiator. But what was funny when I got, I had always negotiated my own deals, but I wasn't thinking of it like that. And when I got my real estate license and started to invest, I started to think like, oh, I'll just use my high end negotiation skills and it was like no, I was way too harsh. You know like people aren't going away, you know for like a life sentence or there's victims in the case, you know for a stupid real estate deal.
Speaker 3:So I had to start, you know, figuring out, reading books and understanding like Chris Voss techniques and how to use my skills of negotiation to create deals, and that's what I do. But I look at it like that's what also gives me the time freedom. I don't go back and forth a lot, I just make an offer, that's the offer. I'm not listening to any counter offers. I know what the price is. If you don't want it, it's no problem, but don't come back a week later because it's going to be less. And that's because that's how I negotiate for myself. I can't do that for clients but for myself. That's again another way of taking control, like you said.
Speaker 2:And the funny thing is, most of the time, especially when you're in a buyer's market like we are now right For most of the country the seller will negotiate with themselves For out there you're the only one going after. They will come back to you at some point You've had this happen many times and say hey, and at that point you know you're in the driver's seat. But one thing you mentioned earlier that I want to, I've got to dive into and kind of switch gears a little bit. You mentioned you don't answer your phone. I have not mastered that. I'm answering phones all the time. You can ask my wife right, like she's like hey, listen, you got to put that phone and so how are you doing that while also running a successful management company? You run streamlined properties. You're managing multiple properties all over the place. How are you doing this and not answering your phone?
Speaker 3:Because I'm quicker on text and I know exactly what people want. And I can guarantee you from all of my years as an attorney and all of my years in real estate that 99% of phone calls are just pomp and circumstance. People want to hear themselves talk and they think that they can negotiate with me. I'm doing them a favor because they're not getting crap from me. As a negotiator I'm better. That's just the end, like I don't fall for any tricks. You know you don't need to tell me, oh, let me explain the offer. If you have to explain the offer, we don't need to get on a call. And also, from my time as an attorney, I realized that everything that you do in a phone call is undocumented because it's not recorded. So then people say that you said something. And that's exactly why I use text, because later on somebody will say you said it was you know 250. And then I just screenshot the text. Nothing else, no words. Screenshot the text. That conversation's over.
Speaker 3:So again, I will talk on the phone, but it has to be scheduled and I usually move those to Zoom because I'm a very monotone, non-emotional person. So even when I'm texting, I think people have taken offense and even when I talk, I just do say what I want. I'm very blunt, but when we get on a Zoom, they can see my face and they can see if I say you know, I like it. They can see that I'm smiling or something, even though I don't do that that much. But when I'm texting I'm not putting a bunch of emojis and stuff so people can read it as like how are you doing? And I say fine, and they're like oh, are you okay? I just answered you like I'm fine and that's how I am as a negotiator.
Speaker 3:But again, my skill set is I'm better one-to-one. That's why I'm good with people. I just not good with a lot of people. So I've just that's my game plan, and I do think that anyone who says no, I need to be on the phone all the time. It's just a waste of time, because most things that people are telling you could be resolved in a text in one second. They're like oh, it's a really important question. I'm like well, just text it to me. And then they asked me something like what's the HOA? And then I text them back $250 a month. Great, it's over. I didn't have to get in on the call. Hey, how you doing All of the like I'm not for small talk.
Speaker 2:Come on now and I think that does come from that background that you have right In law. I can tell you from my calendar link it's 15 minutes right, like, because if you put 30 minutes, people will use about 30 or 45. So it's 15 minute calls. So we get right to the point.
Speaker 3:I had another hack for you, though, and this should work for everybody. So, no matter what, whatever time I have 15 minute zooms, 30 minute zooms, with a second that we get on the call, I remind them what the end of the call is at, because I'm not going over. It doesn't matter if I don't have anything after I'm scheduled, because I may be scheduled to pick up my kids when they were younger. It doesn't make a difference, it's not their business what I have next, but I have 515 to 530. So when we get to 510, I said just reminding we only have five minutes left. So if you have something important, like, let's go for it now. And that's me being proactive and not getting to the end. I also have to make sure I'm getting the answers that I need. So I'm pretty quick on that and, like you said, it's 15 minutes, let's go. We don't need to warm up with hey, how are your kids? Like? I'm good.
Speaker 3:This isn't a friend when it's a business call. You know some people are friends, but again, I got to get back to work and the one thing I'll say about the phone is I've always said this it seems unbelievably insane to me that somebody would just pick up the phone and call me without having any idea what I'm doing, and they'll call me in the middle of a weekday. What do you think I'm doing? I'm at work, it doesn't matter what, like. My schedule is set the night before the whole day's book. So a lot of times the way I get people out of calls no, I really have to talk on the phone. I say great, it's a Monday. I said my next opening is at two 45 on Thursday. Do you want to take that call or do you want to text me? The text comes through. This is just lifestyle architecture and that's what I think I'm an expert at.
Speaker 2:Come on now, and it's coaching people to deal with you in the way that you want to be dealt with right, which is super important. I do a lot of that too, because there's people that will want to hop on the phone at random times, like as a realtor. Most realtors are answering the phone at 7 pm, 8 pm I joked about it earlier. That's only if, like, something is ending like due diligence tonight. But I've trained my clients. They know like hey knees, monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm, unless there's something ending that night that we have to talk about then.
Speaker 3:Otherwise we schedule it out even on the calendar because it does start to encroach on your time a bit over time. Well, I learned that by doing it the wrong way. I was about four years into my on-market agent career. My kids were still not little, but also not even teenagers yet, and I was at the dinner table with them and I was running a big team at the time. It was like my second team and we were doing a lot of business and I was taking calls from 6 am to like 12. I was just like, if they called, I was answering. I just wanted to be the best. And I remember the phone ringing at dinner and I said hold on, I have to take this.
Speaker 3:This is important and right when I said that, I literally just hated myself more than I've ever hated myself. And the next day I broke up with my partner of the team, broke up my relationship with her, which at the same time gave her all the leads 7,500 leads and put my license away, and so I couldn't do business for a year and the whole year all I did is work on myself, personal growth, spend time with my kids, try to learn more about boundaries and better time setting, and I was still I was a very efficient person, but I learned the hard way. So it's great advice that you said. It's like listen, just set your boundaries. Because once you set your boundaries with clients, then they know what to expect. It's not that they care that you're not taking a call at six, it's that you haven't told someone that you don't take calls at six.
Speaker 3:If you say up front, hey, look, I'm a nine to five person, after that I'm with my family who's going to say, oh no, of course, barring an emergency, but look, it's real estate. Unless you're in property management, there's not a lot of emergencies that happen after five because the other people aren't there either. You know, and that's what you have to remember, and everyone always says like, oh, you're the most relaxed person, like nothing phases me and it's because I don't think it's that important. I don't think I'm that important, nothing's that important. Rather, you, you know life and death, sickness, that's important and I've been through that and I, you know, with my, with my family, and my parents both died when I was younger, and it's like no, I I just don't need to spend a lot of time on that. You know, I'll handle it when I handle it absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:and one of the things that you mentioned as well is the fact that you were active in the business, but you took that year away before getting back in right and that helped you kind of discover yourself and understand, okay, what's that balance need to look like before you jump back in, and I know that now you're fully into the world of coaching and helping others achieve what you achieved when you were an agent, just going out there and hitting and pounding the pavement, and so what are some of the obstacles that you've had to help some of the newer agents overcome to start having success within your team as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I would say I was an on-market coach. I worked for a couple companies and then I stopped and then I built teams and my teams was my coaching and what I learned is that real estate agents any independent contractor, it doesn't matter what it is you can't have any expectations of them. You know, and while I'm going into this new adventure that I'm going into, I'm deciding that I'm really understanding what realtors are. They're independent contractors. You just have to let them do their thing. So, if I you know, we had so many leads coming in from Zillow Flex at the time that we were just hiring. We got up to 50 agents on a team. So we're basically running like a pretty solid size brokerage under my brokerage at the time and I just realized that I can't deal with that many people and I can't coach them all the same because they're all different. Right now, when I'm looking to add people, I'm looking for people who fit the archetype that I want or who are just self-starters and I don't need to really worry about them. I don't mind training people, but in the real estate business just in any independent contractor business if you continually train people and then they don't do what you say they get fired and they'd be like yo, I can't believe you're firing me. It's like what are you talking about?
Speaker 3:You know, the funniest thing was we had agents who they would do really well because we had so many leads. So they, you know they'd get five, six deals like real quick, I mean like anything you could ask for. But their capacity was stopped so they just they couldn't do anymore. So when I would look in the back end, they would have closed five but they lost 15. So when I fired them they would be like I don't understand. You know, I did five deals. I'm like you lost 15 deals. Ask for help. You can't let the client like. Our job is to focus on the clients.
Speaker 3:You know, and I think it's funny in the brokerage world, all these brokerages say oh, our clients are our agents. What Our clients are our clients. The agents don't do anything without the clients. So I've always been really good at one-on-one, like I said. So I'm friends with all of my clients and I have a lot of past clients over 12 years.
Speaker 3:We do events, I talk to them all via text and everyone says how do you keep up? I'm like it's on my schedule. Every three months. There's a make sure to reach out to clients and then I'll go through and a lot of them I'm actually just really good friends with. So we're just texting all the time and I think people overthink you know what they need to be coached on. I can't coach you to motivate you. I can't motivate you. Just, you know, read a book, but you can only motivate yourself. I can give you, you know, great quotes and stuff like that, but other than that it's really on the person. And independent contractors are hard to motivate. They're money motivated. But if you're money motivated as a realtor, everyone knows you have commission breadth and it's very hard to work with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what you just said before as well with that piece is the independent contractor thing is huge. Right, it's something that I'm still trying to wrap my head around with the team. Right, I'm young in the team game. We've been a team for what? Two and a half years, and we're continuing to grow.
Speaker 2:But, one of the things I've started to come around to is there's some people, as you mentioned, that are self-motivated, and those guys are excelling. They're reaching out like, hey, me, how do I do this? Hey, I've chased down this lead. I have no idea what I'm doing. Can you help me out? That I can help with. It's the people that are like hey, have you done the tasks that were sent to you? We have these tasks of following up with people that we've closed together. Did you call them? Did you search for their Instagram and follow them? Did you do this? The small things that help you continue to touch base, and I've learned to continue to reward those that are trying to just run and learn along the way, as opposed to those that are needing to get pulled along.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'll give you a great corollary to real estate investors who are new. Because real estate investors are new. There's two kinds. There's the kind that comes up and asks you how do I become a real estate investor? I'm not answering that question, I don't know anything about you, and that's boring. And then there's the other kind who said listen, I've been researching house hacking for a year, I think. I'd like to get a 2-1 over a 2-1. I want to spend $500. I've looked in, I've narrowed it down to three neighborhoods. Can you help me? Yes, I can help you because you've actually done the work.
Speaker 3:And same way if you're going on a job interview or you're applying to a team, or you want to work for a brokerage or you want to work for any job, if you show up for an interview. This has happened a million times with me because over the course of my teams I fired, I think, 147 people, and a lot of times it was. I knew I shouldn't hire them, but we were in a crunch. But if you come to the meeting and I ask you, hey, what do you know about streamlined properties? And you don't know anything, the meeting's over Like I'm not desperate and I think walking away is the most important thing that I've ever learned about anything. I knew it as a negotiator, as an attorney. It was like my offer is good for one minute, go outside and decide. If you're not back in one minute, the offer is revoked and you're never getting a second chance with me, unless a scuffle happened or a fire alarm or something.
Speaker 3:But I was the same way in business and I think maybe that leads to people not liking me, but I don't think it's me. I think they're mad at themselves for not doing the work. I'm not there to you know, baby feed them. They're adults. You know I had babies. I fed them baby food. I'm not feeding adults baby food. Like I said, you have to motivate yourself and if they look at us to and then you're just going to go back and do nothing, it's like you either do the work or you don't, and I because of my dad, I was just always someone who did the work.
Speaker 2:I just like working. That's huge. That is huge, and you don't have to overcomplicate it. It's literally the basics, and the cool thing is, we could give somebody really anybody the keys to the kingdom. Hey, this is exactly what you need to do to be a million dollar agent, but the fact of the matter is not many people are going to follow that strategy or actually do it, and so there's plenty of opportunity for those of us who will. So I get excited about that personally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, me too, and I think you're exactly right. I mean, why do I give away all of my content for free and I have no courses, nothing to sell, nothing. It's just like you courses, nothing to sell nothing, it's just like you know. I run meetups. People come to meetups. Those are free, no pitches, no speeches, because I know, like you said, 99% of the people who ask me what to do and I tell them exactly what to do just aren't going to do it. So the 1% will succeed and the 99 won't.
Speaker 3:But I don't want to be on the hook and I learned from coaching real estate agents that when they show up every week and they hadn't done the assignment, the call was over. So I was like I can't even do any calls. No one's doing what they're supposed to do. And again, same as going back to my phone call. It's just not a good use of my time.
Speaker 3:Why are you paying me to coach you if you're just going to show up and not have done any work over the week? I'm not a therapist, I am a certified life coach, but I don't like doing that. I did that for myself, you know, and for being a parent and for dealing with other people and understanding, like interpersonal dynamics. But it's very hard to coach people because I think, like as I was saying, I think a lot of people want to get motivation and when they can't get it from us because we don't tell them exactly what they want to hear you're great, you're going to succeed as a wholesaler in one day they go on the internet and guess who tells them that they're going to succeed as a wholesaler in one day?
Speaker 2:TikTok and the people that are telling them that are making money off of TikTok not wholesaling Exactly, They'd be busy making offers on houses and the best wholesalers are very good home buyers who are great marketers.
Speaker 3:You know, that's just the way it is. They have overage and they're like, oh, let's just wholesale the rest of these. We can't take down 20 deals, I mean. And that's where technology again. We were talking about it before when I was talking about my kids. You know, a lot of people look to technology now as the thing that's gonna make them successful. Technology is just a bridge to talk to people. Technology is just a bridge to talk to people. So you better learn how to talk to people.
Speaker 3:If you get a bunch of leads and you don't call them, how are you going to get any closings? You know they're like, oh, you know, I got deal machine and I got, you know, 14 leads and I just sent him a postcard. I'm like, yeah, but you have to get in touch with them. And then, when you do get in touch with them, you can't run a script. You a technology as like the dehumanization of just regular real estate. The same thing my dad was doing when I was a kid in the 1970s. I can do the same thing now If you have no money.
Speaker 3:Walk around the neighborhoods, look at houses. See which ones are falling apart. Look up the tax records for free. See if the person lives far away, the furthest away person. Write them a personal letter, boom, you'll probably be able to look at a potential seller finance. But if you just go to a company and say I'll just mail out a thousand mailers, you're just wasting your money. You're not even going to know what to say when they call. So I mean, what are you doing that for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Jonathan, you keep dropping gems. I have to ask a couple more questions, but one of the things that popped into mind before I get to the next one is you're right, you're spot on. Literally, it's the same strategy that was used since forever can work now, but I think now more and more, there's so many other distractions that your superpower just has to be one being able to communicate with other humans and two, being able to focus for a long time. Right, yeah, and not jump from one thing to the next. Focus until you become an expert. Get your 10,000 hours and go from there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, tipping point. But so I'm fully transparent blunt. People either love it or hate it. But the people who hate it, like I said, they're just not comfortable. Because if I go on an appointment and they tell me I want 400,000 and I laugh out loud and tell them the house is maybe worth 220, and they get mad. That's not my problem, go get. If you can get 400, get it. You're not going to, but get it, and that's how I was as an attorney. So I think that when people get rubbed the wrong way by me, you know that's just on themselves. I'm not, I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm not mean to people. I think I'm really nice. But I can do the same strategy that my dad did.
Speaker 3:You know what we did when I was a kid? We went to yard sales all weekend eight, 10 yard sales a weekend and everyone say, like, what are you going for? What do you get? I'm like, well, I mean sometimes I get a basketball, looking for baseball cards and video games. And then I realized later, like as I got into my low teens, I was like, oh, my dad's making an offer on every single house because he knows when you have a yard sale you're moving, like you can do that now, go to yard sales. But you don't walk up, just like you know, when wholesalers say, oh, quick deal for cash. Almost nobody needs cash. So when you go to a yard sale you don't walk up hey, are you selling your house? I'll make you an offer for cash right now.
Speaker 3:You actually become a human being. Hey, what's going on? Oh, yeah, do you have any? You know your baseball cards. My kid's looking for baseball cards. Are you moving? Are you going somewhere? Like, have you lived here long? Oh, I know your friends that live down the block. Like that's real estate and any negotiation in any business. We all know it's people business. Everything's a people business. If you want to get up to the levels where you're making that money and getting that time freedom, you're only going to get there because you're good with people. You know you don't have to be the best. I'm a complete introvert, but I'm very good because I'm honest and I focus one-on-one on people. And again, that means I don't go like around my own boundaries because it's not good. You know, on the telephone I sound like a robot because I don't want to be on the phone. So I'm going to make myself worse, instead of hopping on a Zoom where I can be like myself for 15 minutes and then get off.
Speaker 2:Come on now and for those who were not paying attention, rewind about 30 seconds. He just dropped a strategy that I've never heard of and makes a lot of sense. If somebody's having a yard sale, go and say hello, introduce yourself. There may be a deal to be had.
Speaker 3:But these days you could be a little late because they have all these estate sale things. But like, if you just do that, you'll make good relationships. And they'll say, oh, we're actually already under contract, but Bobby down the street is. And then you say, oh yeah, I'm a local homebuyer, so if you ever know anything, and then you leave them a card, it's not hard. It's not hard. It's not like if somebody told you hey, if you want to be a good salesperson, just be a human. That's literally all you have to do. You might want to learn some scripts and some techniques, just so you're better at it, but here's a good example. Sorry, I go off on these tangents all the time no, please, please.
Speaker 3:When we were on Zillow Flex, zillow would always tell us you know, make the call really short, you know you just want to set the appointment and then get off. So my agents were doing that and I was like what are you doing? Like you're only, you're never going to get a second showing because they don't even like you. They're just showing up. They think you're a door opener Me. I take 25 minute calls and everyone's like why are you doing that? I'm like let's listen to the call. I know their kids names, I know where they're.
Speaker 2:That's huge. That's huge. We do similar on our calls With the initial call. It's all about building that rapport and then setting the next appointment, because again, they're probably talking to other people. You want to stand out initially and then be that realtor for life, because that's how you're going to say the hard way and maybe not even recent, a lesson that you've learned in your life, the hard way that has shaped the way you've approached moving forward in different aspects of your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that. I think it's ask better questions. I mean, you know, my mom died when I was 20. So I never I didn't, and she was sick for a long time. But I was a kid so I wasn't thinking like, oh, I want to ask her all about her past and all about these things. So I didn't really know enough about her. So from 20 to 33, before my dad died, I literally asked that guy every weird question that you've ever heard and I've encouraged my kids like ask me everything. You just don't know what's around the corner.
Speaker 3:And, as we were saying before, the difference between asking how do I invest in real estate? And a very pinpointed question If you ask better questions, people are going to talk to you. And the way to get deals is for people to talk to you, and the way you build relationships is if people talk to you. So I would describe it. Someone else came up with this I honestly can't remember who, but they said be interested, not interesting. If you want to be the life of the party, then you're just going to talk the whole time.
Speaker 2:If you want to win, you need to be a good listener 100% agreed, and I first heard that lesson in how to win friends and influence people. I think he might've been at least the first to document it, but it's just spot on. It's how do you ask about other people, how do you learn about their lives? Because we're all the main character in our own story, and so we do like to talk about ourselves.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, again, if you're a brand new real estate investor and you go to a meetup, what are real estate investors like to talk about the most Themselves? So ask them questions, but ask them better questions, you know. Have you ever done a house hack? Oh, you have. Great. Now you have a million questions to ask. Have you ever flipped a home? What's the hardest part about flipping a home? That's a much better question than like do you like house flipping? Nobody likes house flipping. They like it when they sell it for a lot of money. During a house flip, you just want to jump off a bridge every single day. It's terrible. I mean, no one's like oh, this is the best day of my life. You know we're getting plumbing rough in today. Great, yeah, great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. And then the inspectors come in and red tag you in our whole life.
Speaker 3:We just had to happen this week. I mean, it's just like and you, you could be, you know you could be 30 flips in and they're just. That's just. They're just playing games.
Speaker 2:Just you just got to go with it. Hey, it is part of the game, part of the struggle, but shifting gears we talked a bit about this at the beginning or before we started rolling. But what are some of the next steps within your business that you're excited about? I'm pumped about this personally and we're going to share with our audience, because I want to understand and start to learn from you how to transition from a large team to this. But, please, what are some of the next things you're excited about?
Speaker 3:I hope this comes out after I do it. Oh no, it's live. So we're really in trouble. Out after I do it, oh no, it's live. So we're really in trouble. No, I mean, on the horizon for me is I want to open a brokerage. I mean, I can't say how far down the rabbit hole I am, but you know, I've worked for other brokerages for 12 years, and before that, though, I worked in the art world and I had galleries, and I really liked the independence of losing my own money in art. But now I feel like I've learned enough. I have my broker's license in two states. It's something that I want to take control of, but also because I have a big investor community, so I want to hold that for myself and nurture them and not kind of have an overlord. But it was great for 12 years to have an umbrella over my head. You know from brokerages, and I appreciate that, but brokerages are going in one direction and I'm going in another.
Speaker 3:The industry is just an absolute, complete failure right now, and it's I don't even know whose fault it is, but like nobody looks at it and like, oh you know, it's a great time to become a real estate agent. Like real estate is not transparent. The lawsuits are insane. They never should have happened. People are arguing over, you know, having private listings and then pretending like it's good for the sellers. This stuff is just crazy. Like, obviously, max capacity for most people, seeing everything is the best. But also, yeah, I don't want to be beholden to Zillow and all these companies either. So I see everybody's side, but I think it's when you're an entrepreneur it's very hard to work for someone else. And you know real estate's interesting because I ran big teams but I was running them under another brokerage, so you know that's kind of part of the game, as you know. But you know, at some point you have to decide, like, do I want to take the hit which is the overhead and everything? And because, because I ran galleries which you cannot make money with but it's so much fun, I'm just ready at this time in my life to kind of branch out and I just like it.
Speaker 3:People always say my coach always says you know you're bored if you're either not fighting or not building. So like, if I have all the builds that I want and I'm working on a build, then I need someone to aggravate me Because I'm, like a really good negotiator. So I like, I like to kind of win. So they're like when you're bored, just find someone to screw with you and like you'll, it'll light up your whole world. You know it's weird, but it's just true. But like, right now I'm in build mode and I just I like building things. I really, I like building teams, I like building businesses. I like building things. I really, I like building teams, I like building businesses, I like the opportunity to build something that I can leave to my kids Also. That's, that's just a little bit beyond real estate but is a real estate business, and I think I'll do that with some supplementary businesses as well.
Speaker 2:Come on now, and it's only weird if you're not someone like like Michael Jordan, right, who was doing the same thing and he won six championships, so we no-transcript, get overly political, no matter what side you're on, or you can just do your job and I've always just done my job.
Speaker 3:And I think the key in everything again, like if people are watching this or listening, they're like, oh, I mean guy's kind of a dick, like it doesn't phase me, I'm very fine with myself. And I think self-awareness is really the key to everything and that was what that year off helped me. It doesn't matter if people like me or they don't like me. It's usually a reflection of themselves. Like who am I? You know, in a hundred years I'm dust. Like maybe my grandkids will remember me, maybe not, I don't know. So I don't think I'm that important. So people who say that people think they're important, I mean maybe, sure, if you're Bezos, I mean you are important. You know you're more important than me, but I'm just trying to make a little mark in my little space and help as many people as I can who are willing to accept it.
Speaker 3:And other than that, like I'm just going about my mindfulness routine, going to the gym, you know, still hanging out with my kids even though they're adults I'm just not that worried about what everyone else is doing and I think that helps me and also, like I said, knowing myself. If I know that's what motivates me, I could tell someone listen, I got to tell you I wouldn't start up some stuff with me. It's just going to motivate me, like, let's just just keep it regular. They think that's like some weird taunt. It's not. I'm just saying the truth. I negotiated every day for 10 years. I get a weird pleasure out of it. So let's not go down that rabbit hole because I don't think it's good for me either. I want to keep myself, you know, tied in, but you know, sometimes it helps.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and and Jonathan. Last question for me is you've mentioned it a bit, but I want to even zero in on it further but legacy, right, you've built a lot of different businesses. You're starting even more ventures that are going to take you to even higher and higher heights. When it's all said and done, what do you want your legacy and your work to be, through this real estate journey that you've been taking?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. I mean the podcast, my podcast that I had you on, which it's not out yet your episode but Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing. That's an homage to my dad and everything that he taught me. So I feel like I'm pushing forward what my dad taught me and I don't think my kids need to do that. But I think if I, if people go and listen to you know whatever 250, 260 episodes that we're at now and they get one tidbit, that's unbelievable. So the fact that it can happen on a large scale and 10 people could get a tip from each episode and that's, you know, 2,500 tips it's just amazing. But, just like us talking, it's just cool because we can just have a conversation and someone could be listening and be like you know what?
Speaker 3:I didn't like everything that person said, but that one thing. That was a crystal and you know the face when you're at a real estate event or you're with a client and you say something and it just all clicks for them at one moment when you see that that's actually a legacy. But for me it's. I just want to provide my kids with the life that my dad provided for me and not make them want for anything. But you know, I was never spoiled and my dad did really well, I was just like, I just never thought about it. You know, I never talked about what I had or what I was doing. I just, like I said, I just did my job, you know, and when I was a kid, I just did my life, you know. I just I wanted to play basketball, I played basketball. I think I was kind of on time freedom as a kid, you know, school was just part of my schedule.
Speaker 2:I think being a kid is the ultimate time freedom. You just didn't realize it, I mean look, people were serving.
Speaker 3:You know, when you're a kid, like you show up at dinner and there's food on the table, Like you know, you can't take that for granted. I mean that's why I read a lot. I read, you know, I think I read like 60 books last year. I read a lot for perspective, you know. I think that every time that one of the best perspective lessons I learned I mean it's just a good thing for where we're at in this conversation is, you know, when I was younger, someone cut me off in traffic and I'd be like cursing and my dad, my dad would be like what do you? What do you care? Like they're not, what do you care? Like, where are you going? Like we're going home, what are you in such a rush for? He always said don't rush life. And now the way that I describe it as like every time somebody does something to me or says something to me, instead of going down my old prosecutorial tendencies and going into like you know, and going into, like you know a back and forth, I say are you okay? You know? That's it.
Speaker 3:If you just say that to someone who's just like coming at you for no reason, like they might open up because they're probably just having a bad day. Maybe they're getting a divorce, Maybe they just got a cancer diagnosis, Maybe their parents dying, Maybe they just put their dog down, Like it's not all about me and it's not all about you, the listener, it's not like. That's the perspective that has really, really changed my life that when something's happening, like everyone always says, oh, that person just cut you off. My kids would say this. When you're like, oh, that was so close, I'm like, I mean, they'd probably just maybe their wife's having a baby, you know, like, just try to focus on something that's outside of yourself and you're just going to get so much further. It gives you so much better perspective and it goes back to be interested and be interesting. Stop worrying about yourself so much.
Speaker 3:If you just open up yourself, ask other people good questions, you'll actually develop relationships and those turn into business relationships or lifelong friendships. I mean, I'm still friends with my friends from first grade, so I'm good at relationship nurture for the people I like. So I think that's really something that people are missing. These days. There's a loneliness epidemic, and it's weird because everyone can stay connected on social media, so hire people more lonely now because they're not doing stuff in person. This is a great medium for us to talk like this and we feel like we know each other. But, man, is it going to be cool when we finally meet in real life. You know what I mean, and that's like a goal for me, and I think that's just a good way to think about moving forward, how to do business, how to do life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and to that point, more and more it's getting easier and pretty soon we're going to have holograms like in Star Wars and things of that nature. But more than that, it's better to meet up in person, go and do life together in community. You'll live longer, you'll be more joyful and you'll feel more purposeful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And I mean look, I walk a lot Like I'm a walker. I take two, three walks a day. I look at the grass, I smell things, I listen to podcasts while I'm going. That's what it is for me, but that's missing. Now. I don't want to go on VR and look at nature that actually is proven to help you feel better. But going outside is even better. And again, these are things that I think people have to learn today, because there's just so much we can do from here. I do sit at my computer a lot, but that's why I get out and walk.
Speaker 3:And the one thing about stuff like walking or meditating, someone said oh, that doesn't work. It doesn't cure depression. That's all correct, but you're never going to be worse off by taking a walk. It's not going to make you feel worse, so no one should say it's going to cure anything but it's not going in the other direction. I think you want to look for a lot of stuff in your life that's just at that level set where you know what it may not work today. It's why I meditate every day for nine years, never miss the day. Some days I'm just sitting there, nothing's coming in. That's still good because it's not bad. I can tell you that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And, jonathan, I can't thank you enough for joining me on the Acaba Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast. If people want to go follow you or listen to the podcast, how can they get a hold of you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, podcast is Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing Easy to find on the podcast apps and that's the website is justcom, and that the social is Zen, real Estate Investing. But you can find me on social and everywhere as Trust Green and Green as an E at the end. I'm not hard to find online. I'm old but I'm pretty good at social media. But again, when I say I'm good at social media still and I was on Instagram on the first day I still have like 3,000 followers, but I can guarantee you that I get a ton more business from Instagram than people with hundreds of thousands of followers because they don't care who their followers are. I delete, block people, sit literally all day because I only want people following me who I think are following me for the right reasons. And I think again, that's just if you, if you just rewound our whole conversation. That sums it up right there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Most people are shooting just for the numbers. We're shooting for the actual cash flow and the real followers that are actually trying to do something and make it happen.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and I really appreciate you having me on. You're a cool guy. I loved our conversation. I can't wait for your episode to come out, and it's just cool to go back to back, so we have it both ways.
Speaker 2:Come on now, and we're going to delay this one, so it doesn't come out until after what we talked about.
Speaker 3:Again. So yeah, the last thing I'll tell you is because it relates to exactly what you said. When I had my big team for the holidays one year, they got me a bunch of merchandise and it had five letters on it ILDNC and it stands for I literally do not care, I don't care, like I do what I want. You know, I'm very like, I said very nice to people. I'm not offensive, but like, what my opinion is is my opinion. The truth is the truth. This is what it is. You know, if someone wants to get mad or, you know, create an issue, have fun with it. I'm going to be like meditating somewhere, just relaxing in a hammock.
Speaker 2:Come on now. And that's where the Zen comes from, exactly Everyone. Thank you for joining. Go ahead and hit the like, subscribe and follow, and we will be back next week with another episode. Jonathan, thank you, thanks, nia, I really appreciate it.
